The policy-making arm of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), on Tuesday released the attached minutes of the Committee meeting held on November 3-4, 2009. Here is a summary of economic projections made by Federal Reserve Board members and Reserve Bank presidents.
“In the forecast prepared for the November FOMC meeting, the staff raised its projection for real GDP growth over the second half of 2009 but left the forecast for output growth in 2010 and 2011 roughly unchanged. The spending and production data received during the intermeeting period suggested that economic activity, especially household spending, was a little stronger in the summer than previously estimated.
Also, industrial production increased more than had been anticipated at the September meeting. But with labor market conditions somewhat weaker than anticipated, earlier declines in wealth still weighing on household balance sheets, and measures of consumer sentiment relatively low, the staff did not take much signal from the recent unexpected strength in spending and output. Indeed, the staff boosted its projection for the unemployment rate over the next several years. Still, the staff continued to believe that several factors that were restraining spending would gradually fade.
The staff anticipated that the strengthening of the recovery in real output during 2010 and 2011 would be supported by an ongoing improvement in financial conditions and household balance sheets, continued recovery in the housing sector, improved household and business confidence, and accommodative monetary policy even as the impetus to real activity from fiscal policy diminished.
The staff forecast for inflation was little changed from the September meeting. Although oil prices moved higher, likely boosting near-term inflation, the staff also revised up its estimate of the degree of slack in the economy, leaving the forecast for total and core PCE inflation over the next two years little changed. With significant underutilization of resources expected to persist for several years, the staff continued to project that core inflation would slow somewhat further over the next two years.” – FOMC
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